Mackenzie Selkirk Simpson

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CHIPEWYAN T AKE ATHABASKA, on account of its geo- -L graphical position, was the key to the far north. Vast regions inhabited by the best of fur- bearing animals were, and are to the present day, tributary to it. As already stated, the violent Peter Pond had led the way to the district, although he had not taken possession of the lake itself. It was in 1778 that Pond built his post on Elk River, or, as the French called it, Riviere a la Biche, thirty miles south of Lake Athabaska. To this point Alexander Mackenzie had come, here his broad plans were laid for the extension of the fur trade, and here the brilliant designs were conceived that were to make him famous as an explorer. Masson, in his book on the North-West Company, depicts in a striking manner the feelings of many of the more educated and enterprising fur traders, as they contemplated the monotony and humdrum of much of a fur trader's life. He represents Alexander Mackenzie as not entirely above the tedium which he sought to relieve by bursts of bustling activity. " How do you spend your time ?" asked a young clerk of the North-West Company of a comrade of his own age, who, like himself, had received a goodeducation. " I rise with the sun; I go to see the traps ; if a number of Indians arrive I buy their furs, then I eat tollibce (white fish) three times a day. Do you see ? I find the time very long, and I fear that my constitution will be seriously injured by that kind of a life, but what can be done ? I make a dog train; I bend some wood for snowshoes; and with perseverance I hope to learn the use of the crooked knife." Such a life could not satisfy Alexander Mackenzie ; his intelligent and open nature revolted from the idea of passing the best years of his life in such intellectual stagnat...

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